Opportunity Items (Guide)
There are items in the game which add cards to your opportunity deck simply by being in your possession. Many of these are useful, while others are to be avoided if possible. Knowing about them early can help you open up more lucrative opportunities or avoid unfortunate consequences. Bazaar Companions Several of the companions you can buy from the Bazaar add cards to your deck, either alone or in conjunction with other items. Starter Animals These companions can all be acquired shortly after escaping New Newgate Prison and represent a dramatic increase in value for the starting player's opportunity deck. All add cards with Standard frequency which involve a luck check of (usually) 60%, leading to an expected value of ~1.05 echoes (not counting second chances or menace reduction) in each case. A parliament of bats helps kickstart the Certifiable Scrap grind with a luck check that grants 3 scrap on a success, a Bat with Attitude that can be sold for 12.5 echoes on a rare success, and it also gives an additional opportunity to accumulate Favours: The Great Game. Since both are hard to grind in the early stages of the game, this is a valuable pick. The other three animals follow a simple pattern: A chance to trade 0.25 echoes of a basic resource for 2 echoes of goods plus a second chance and menace reduction. Like the Sulky Bat, the Reprehensible Lizard can be bought with the spare change you get for selling your manacles, and Beeswax can be obtained early by helping the Chandler from The Department of Menace Eradication. Even better, both the Bat and the Lizard can be applied towards the cost of permanent access to Mahogany Hall later on when their cards are starting to become less valuable relative to other cards in your deck. The others are a bit more expensive and a bit harder to usefully dispose of, but the value of their actions will easily repay the net loss of 6.4 echoes should you end up selling them back to the Bazaar, and the additional second chances and net menace reduction are a boon in the early game. Working-Class Companions This is a much more mixed bag than the starter animals. Almost all of them are skill checks, which means they will train your stats and can be sure things once your stats are high enough, but the payouts are generally lower. In addition, the companions are more expensive; by the time you have the resources to acquire them, your opportunity deck is probably looking a bit better, so the overall benefit of adding these cards is lessened. On top of that, the cards themselves are seen less often, being Infrequent of Very Infrequent as opposed to Standard. In most cases, you'd probably be better off saving your echoes or buying other equipment that offers a better echo->stat bonus ratio. On the other hand, most of these companions offer additional opportunities to gain valuable Favours, albeit at a 1 echo surcharge. The Urchin and the Orphan both provide an opportunity to gain Favours: Urchins, which can be valuable if you have access to the Flit and need to grind Certifiable Scrap. The Orphan also provides an inexpensive source of additional Laudanum, which can be a good Nightmares cure for pre-PoSI characters. Similarly, the Accomplice and the Henchman provide an additional source of Favours: Criminals, though one should be cautious about combining them, given their conflict card (discussed below). The Accomplice also provides a means of cashing in Favours: The Church, which could be useful if you do not have consistent access to the Shuttered Palace for the more lucrative option for calling in those favours. The other wrinkle is that several of these companions (namely, the Urchin, the Orphan, and the Accomplice) are required to start up an Orphanage, so if you plan on going that route instead of opening A Salon, you may as well grab one of each early and enjoy the cards until then. Similarly, the Malevolent Monkey can be converted into a Pentecost Ape during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose, so if you have that acquisition as a long-term goal you could acquire the monkey and keep some honey around in the meantime. Companion Conflicts A few companions will get into conflict if you have them in your employ at the same time, adding special cards to your deck. These cards are usually lackluster or even damaging, but some options might be worth your while, depending on your situation. A note about rats... Having the Working Rat and the Ratskin Suit at the same time adds Sartorial squeamishness to your deck, which gives you an opportunity to unlock the Sympathetic about Ratly Concerns quality. That quality, along with a Working Rat, Talkative Rattus Faber, and Rattus Faber Bandit-Chief will unlock A night-time conference once your Dangerous is high enough, giving you an alternate route into the Seeking the Meaning of the Plaster Face storyline. Having those three rats (along with a Disgraced Rattus Faber Bandit-Chief) also gives you additional options during that storyline, so it's something to keep in mind. PoSI Items Becoming a Person of Some Importance opens up the expanded inventory to a variety of items not previously available. The excellent PoSI Item Crafting guide has a rundown of how to obtain these items (and their components) as well as their stats. This section is going to focus on the opportunity cards that these high level items unlock, which, with a few exceptions, have Standard frequency. PoSI item cards generally provide a good source of a particular material and an additional means of gaining favours, so they are generally worth your time. Even the ones that have more questionable cards often provide valuable stat bonuses. Affiliations The Salon and the Orphanage are mutually exclusive upgrades to the Handsome Townhouse lodging and add additional actions to the associated card. Both serve as a means to bank potential Making Waves long term for the purposes of hitting high Notability levels. Of the two, the Salon is the more widely preferred option, as you can grind for the necessary items directly and will likely generate Making Waves in the process, whereas the Orphanage requires you to sell items for Echoes to buy the necessary components or invest directly. The Gang of Hoodlums and Membership of God's Editors both provide additional means of gaining favours, which is reason enough to get them. On top of that, the Gang of Hoodlums unlocks the most efficient means of obtaining Casing..., and Membership of God's Editors is tied for the best BDR of the Affiliations with the Orphanage, which most people forgo in favor of the Salon. Both of these should probably be high priorities as a result. Transport The Velocipede is included for the sake of completeness, as you are required to make one as part of becoming a PoSI and so don't really have a choice not to include the card in your deck. Luckily, it provides a healthy number of Cryptic Clues and a way to gain Favours: Constables, so you won't regret having it The other Transportation options are also worth your time. The Respectable Landau provides 1.9 echoes worth of goods. The Clay Sedan Chair provides a nice bounty of candles for the Heartless and a source of Society favours for the Austere. The Sedan Chair also has an option with a luck check if Jack of Smiles is about, but this is less useful unless you need an Antique Constable's Badge and refuse to just buy one. Home Comforts This is perhaps the one category where there is a solid argument to be made for not obtaining everything. They provide decent stat bonuses, but are outshone by Renown items. In the case of the Gymnasium, you have other sources of Rostygold, and the Dangerous training action is only useful until you get that stat up as high as you need it. The Library is entirely based on luck checks and offers a smattering of different goods, so it is not even a useful means of grinding a specific resource. Spouses First off, it should be noted that both of these cards are Very Infrequent, so they won't have a huge impact on the value of your opportunity deck. They also provide fewer stat bonuses than player spouses (and none of the BDR of a Boneless Consort). That said, both are quite profitable cards. The Artist's Model provides 2.5 echoes plus Confident Smiles and Making Waves, or a means to get Favours: Bohemians. The easy option from the Master Jewel Thief provides 2.32 echoes and a Nightmares cure, but the most profitable option from the Master Jewel Thief is likely the Favours: Criminals. Clubs These cards used to be fairly even, but The Young Stags' Club is now clearly superior. The Parthenaeum provides a handy Suspicion cure and doesn't require any gambling, but the Young Stags' Club provides a good source of wines that can be profitably fed to the Portly Sommelier. The second option on The Young Stags' card is even better, giving you three Favours for five echoes of Rostygold, a significant profit even if you simply cash those favours in at the Shuttered Palace. On top of that, The Young Stags provide Bizarre and Dreaded which are generally more difficult to stack than The Parthenaeum's Respectable. That more or less covers everything when it comes to equipable items that add cards to your deck. Hopefully this helps in optimizing your deck for whatever stage of the game you are at. Category:Guides